Podcast: Hell Yes IV ~ Chewie, we're home…

Hey, you! No new episode this week as it's all go over at Hell Yes Towers, but since it's also all go over here at Blackout Towers, here's last week's episode which I didn't get to post up here. What can I tell you? It's all go.

Tom Parry from sketch group Pappy's drops by to tell us about taking part in the London Marathon, James Reeve tells us about the twin extremes of Saturday afternoon estate-agency, Rich Lansley discusses the merits of The Terminator, and of course John Galantini hosts, bringing with him an armful of tracks from The Rolling Stones, Thom Yorke and The Fall, among others.

Oh, also features me defending the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy*¹, talking about John Wick and Child 44, and has the most laboured tribute to Lee & Herring that you'll hear on a podcast this week.

It's all here, it's all free, it can only be The 'Hell, Yes!' Podcast!

"Chewie… we're home."

The "Hell, Yes!" Podcast - Episode 4: Chewie, we're home! by Hellyespodcast on Mixcloud

*¹ Oh, that comes as no surprise to regular readers, I'm sure.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Memento

Memento (2000)
Cert: 15 / 113 mins / Dir. Christopher Nolan / Trailer



You see, this is exactly why I started this season of movies. So that I can watch brilliant, classic films for the first time and gush about them while you look at me with a blank face and say "…well, yes. We've been telling you that for years."

Director Christopher Nolan's 2000 thriller (adapted from a story written by his brother, Jonathan) stars Guy Pearce as a man with Anterograde Amnesia - a brain unable to form new memories after a traumatic incident - attempting to hunt down his wife's murderer by leaving messages and clues in the form of notes he'll find and tattoos on his body. The film comprises of two sequences; a black and white chain of events which occurs 'forwards', interspersed with the colour chain of events told in regressive steps until the two meet at the film's climax. Sound confusing? Good, it's meant to be. Memento starts as being fascinating, becomes infuriating, then finishes by morphing into brilliance.

On par with the Nolan's Inception for innovation and sheer narrative force, Memento rewards the concentration of its audience without patronising them, and its writing and direction are matched beat for beat by Wally Pfister's dreamlike cinematography and Pearce's candid performance as the memory-vacuum, Leonard.

Another viewing is now required, of course, and I suspect several/many more after that. Fans of varied typography will also appreciate some of Leonard's informational tattoos (although I can't imagine he did many of the serif-faces himself with a pin and a biro, somehow?)

I haven't. Guy Pearce wasn't always irking hardcore fanboys as The Mandarin, and there was once a time when one did not simply go and see a film with Mike From Out Of Neighbours in it…



I am.



I would.



There's not.



Oh, Guy Pearce starred in Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert alongside Terence 'Chancellor Valorum' Stamp.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Avengers - Age of Ultron (third-pass)

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (third-pass / HUGE PLOT SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 141 mins / Dir. Joss Whedon / Trailer



Okay, you read that spoiler-disclaimer up there, didn't you? The one which says "HUGE PLOT SPOILERS"? Yeah. Good. I'm entirely serious, don't read the rest of this review if you haven't seen the film. I'm just very aware that Age Of Ultron isn't out in the US yet*¹ and yet I've seen it three times so I'm all like 'oh what, this old thing?' and some folks are like 'Hey! Don't tell us that [REDACTED] dies, you monster!'. Well don't worry, that's what this spoiler-break is for, so that any of the things I'm going to look into don't get picked up by your RSS feed or somesuch.

So while you mull it over and decide whether you want to scroll on, here's a picture of a Beagle dressed as Thor to calm your troubled mind…



Still here? Smashing, the spoilers will be here in a moment, but first here's the timeline of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies so far…

[2008] Iron Man
[2008] The Incredible Hulk
[2010] Iron Man 2
[2011] Thor
[2011] Captain America: The First Avenger
[2012] Avengers Assemble
[2013] Iron Man 3
[2013] Thor: The Dark World
[2014] Captain America: The Winter Soldier
[2014] Guardians Of The Galaxy
[2015] Avengers: Age Of Ultron

…and here's a timeline of what's to come...

[2015] Ant-Man
[2016] Captain America: Civil War
[2016] Doctor Strange
[2017] Guardians Of The Galaxy 2
[2017] Spider-Man
[2017] Thor: Ragnarok
[2018] Avengers: Infinity War Part 1
[2018] Black Panther
[2018] Captain Marvel
[2019] Avengers: Infinity War Part 2
[2019] Inhumans

Now the reason I mention this is that we're 11 films into a 22-movie series (confirmed so far), and the end of Avengers: Age Of Ultron has left me with one question...

Why won't Marvel kill off their heroes?

The final scene of AoU introduces us to the next iteration of The Avengers; Captain America and Black Widow, who we already know and love, a welcome spotlight for War Machine and The Falcon, plus Scarlet Witch and The Vision. That's quite a change of lineup when you consider no-one died to make it this way. Tony Stark decides he's going to pootle off back to Pepper for a bit, Bruce Banner has stealth-moded off the radar of an organisation which seemed to have no trouble tracking him down previously, Thor has just remembered he has some pressing admin which needs doing on Asgard, and Agent Barton's bought the farm. And not in the usual cinematic sense. No-one, in fact, buys the farm.

The Avengers who are phased out are essentially put on ice, like toys put back in the play-box because new ones have arrived on Christmas morning. In many ways (read: business) it's a responsible attitude, but one which restricts development of the timeline. It's certainly not that we don't want to see Iron Man's super-facetious version of a super-hero, and watching The Hulk single-handedly destroy an entire building then spend ten minutes looking remorseful about it hasn't lost its appeal quite yet. But this practice of restricting permanent change in the timeline starts to leave you with the feeling that very little's actually changing at all. Plenty of induction-days, not so many funerals.

In fact, the only (named) characters who actually die in this film are the ones introduced in it, too. Poor old Quicksilver does his best but is never quite as charismatic as his X-Men incarnation, and a fatal spray of anti-armour artillery from an Ultron-piloted gunship sees him stretchered off onto SHIELD's rescue heli-carrier while his sister has a bit of a meltdown (although given how many Ultron-drones were closing in on the magic-plunger at that moment, everyone would have been royally screwed if her wave of anger and grief hadn't fried every toaster in a five-block radius). That said, the script had already explained that the source of Quicksilver's power was a super-fast metabolism, and those shells look like they passed right through, to me. All I'm saying is, don't be surprised if he makes a return in the future. Agent Coulson survived worse.

Then there's Ultron himself; the film's uber-baddie who seems far more flippant and sarcastic than any comic version of the character I remember, and also considerably less of a genocidal maniac (he still is one, of course, just less somehow). For two hours we're shown Ultron constantly upgrading himself and inhabiting thousands of bodies simultaneously; he disappears into the internet itself and essentially absorbs the sum of all human knowledge, a move which even The Avengers admit will make him almost impossible to destroy. Then they destroy him. Maybe in his haste to crush all of everything in the world ever, Ultron didn't leave a backup of his personality back at the workshop or… y'know, on any capable machine connected to the internet anywhere in the world? It seems unlikely to me, so while we get a fantastic final scene between Ultron and The Vision, again I wouldn't be surprised if he manages to crop up again to annoy Earth's Mightiest Heroes (his ultimate indestructibility is his calling card in every other version of the character, after all).

Then there's the reasons for the other heroes' departure. While I'm very aware that the movies can't (indeed shouldn't) be straight-up adaptations of the comic stories, Tony Stark took a break from being Iron Man in the mid 1980s to attempt to conquer his alcoholism, and James 'War Machine' Rhodes wore the armour in his stead. While it's great that Don Cheadle gets to wear his character's regular armour (hey, I loved Iron Patriot but let's dial that back a little), surely this would have been a more solid reason for Stark's (temporary?) abdication from the group? The three Iron Man films did a great job of painting a more rounded picture of Tony-Stark-The-Man than they did Iron-Man-The-Hero. Wouldn't a natural extension of this be showing that he's still battling his internal demons, rather than "well, I supposed I'd best go and spend some time with the missus - you know what they're like!"? I'm also not entirely convinced that Iron Man should have been in this movie at all, but that's a ponder for my next review. The fact remains that there are (presently) no more standalone Iron Man movies scheduled, so unless a TV show is in the works, why retire the character so noncommittally?

Then there's Bruce Banner. Not dwelling on the fact that his exit isn't a million miles away from that of the last Batman, I'll give it to Marvel that The Hulk really is a character that needs a little solitude between appearances. It's how the 2008 Edward Norton movie ended, and pretty much how every episode of the Bill Bixby-era TV series closed, too. So it's what the character's used to, if nothing else. It's also an ending which sets the character up perfectly for another spin-off adventure, but there's nothing scheduled there, yet.

Then there's Thor. He spent most of the film stewing over the hallucination given to him by Scarlet Witch and has gone off to investigate the perceived meaning. That's fair enough, as he's the only one of the group to have a working knowledge of the Infinity Stones, and he's due to appear in a standalone/sequel in 2017.

Then there's Hawkeye. Lovely, cuddly Clint's backstory has been so hastily assembled that the glue's still drying when The Quinjet touches down behind the barn. It's deserved, of course. The guy's been essentially playing second-fiddle since his cameo in the first Thor movie, and it's nice to know he's more than just a bow, an arrow and a frown. But Age Of Ultron heavy-handedly points towards the delivery of Barton's KIA Medal in just about every scene he has… then doesn't have the bottle to kill him (again, I must stress that I like this characters. I don't want them to die, as such. I just want to see some consequences). Sure, The Hawk can be wheeled out for a future appearance or cameo, but will there be an accompanying scene of him sitting glumly at home, promising not to get killed?

But it's not like it's just Age Of Ultron that's doing this. In Thor: The Dark World, the film essentially ended in the same place it started, other than the wrecking of Greenwich Observatory's new lawn and the death of Frigga, a character who was incidental at best. Sure, she's Thor's mum, but it's not like the whole Asgard dynamic was about those two squabbling. Secondary characters turn up in that film, scowl and then die (and Odin doesn't count as there's little chance he died off-screen). The Winter Soldier achieved a greater amount of scene-shifting by essentially dismantling the SHIELD organisation, but again this was done with minimum cast-casualties (first-appearances or previous background characters only). Now obviously in Age Of Ultron, the dynamic *has* changed massively, but it's still be done in a very non-permanent way. Is this an insurance policy so that if MCU Phase Three and beyond doesn't go down as well as hoped, the original Phase One lineup can be pulled back out of stasis?

So. Tell me why I'm wrong. Tell me why packing the kids off to Summer-camp is fine in this instance. Tell me why the film's final battle only apparently has one casualty (although I'm pretty sure there'd be a shitload of civilians killed or trapped in the wreckage in Sokovia, and more than a few who just fell off the edge). Tell me why Marvel can't bear to kill off any of their heroes, even the one that got kebabbed with The Loki-Pokey Stick.

Comments-box or Facebook, either will be smashing, thanks.

Hang on, do I have to answer these every time I see the film?.



Well, they're self-imposed rules, so I suppose I do.



I mean obviously, you should go and see this in the cinema, as that's where it'll look best.



That said, I wouldn't bother with the 3D unless that happens to be the screening you're saddled with.



It's not like it ruins the film, but it doesn't really make it any better.



Any what's the point of paying extra for something which is only going to make the film a bit darker and not really improve it?



This again? Okay, Chris 'Captain America' Evans lent his voice to the 2007 animated T.M.N.T. movie, which also starred James Arnold Taylor who voices Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
I can't believe you want a different one of these each time, especially since Mace Windu's in the film…







*¹ I have no idea why the UK gets an early release. As I recall, we did for Guardians Of The Galaxy, too. For obvious reasons I can't really complain about it, but if I lived on the other side of the pond I'd be a bit miffed about it, frankly.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Avengers - Age Of Ultron (second-pass)

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (second-pass / VAGUE-SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 141 mins / Dir. Joss Whedon / Trailer


First review here.

So a second-pass of one of 2015's biggest movies certainly helped me see a little more clearly through the fog of war. Still not always as clearly as I'd have liked, though, and it still seems apparent that the film is trying to fit far too much story into the gaps between the action. This is the normal way of things for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the plot-gaps are smaller than usual here.

That's not to say I'm not completely in love with the film, but I'd happily have had more and longer scenes with Black Widow and Hulk, as both Johannson and Ruffalo are giving us something really great; just not enough of it. Also suffering from development-vs-time-constraint are Scarlet Witch and The Vision, although I suspect (alright, hope) that will be addressed in some future installment of the timeline.

Still on the subject of exposition, Whedon's screenplay skips fairly deftly around the origins of Witch and Quicksilver; namely the conflict of interests between Marvel Studios continuity-strand and that of Fox's X-Men series. Quicksilver appeared in last year's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, of course, with a rather scene-stealing showcase of his powers. Fox have the rights to use the character as he's the son of Magneto and therefore falls under the umbrella of their licensing agreement with Marvel. Usually this would preclude a super-hero's appearance in another cinematic timeline, but Quicksilver is also a paid-up member of The Avengers*¹, hence him appearing in Age Of Ultron, this time with his twin sister. There's no mention of mutants, but the script is deliberately non-committal on whether the Maximoff-twins had any degree of their powers prior to Baron Von Strucker's research programme (that's not a spoiler, it's the post-credits scene of Winter Soldier).

More plot-driven than Avengers Assemble, certainly in terms of the larger narrative, Age Of Ultron is a film which asks far more questions than it answers. The more of the MCU timeline you know before sitting down, the easier you'll find things to follow; although that will also be the same source of your questions. Ridiculously loud and over-the-top, Marvel go to great lengths to provide an even bigger climactic setpiece than the three heli-carriers in The Winter Soldier, and it's fair to say that in terms of spectacle, they've outdone themselves. Again.

Go and see Age Of Ultron then come back and we'll talk spoilers. Serious spoilers.

And am I the only one who's slightly disconcerted that Ultron's mouth moves when he speaks?
This is like Optimus Prime all over again…



For fans of the genre and/or franchise, yes.



Buy it and watch it lots of times.



Ms Johannson certainly gets to do more actual acting than she has previously, which is always a good thing.



It certainly does.



not a lot less, but a bit. Probably.



There is. It's worked into Captain America's first casualty in the Sovokian woods.



Visual effects by (among others) ILM and audio mastering performed at Skywalker Sound. I think that'll be close enough for this pass, seeing as I've already mentioned that two of the cast are Star Wars cast-members.







*¹ The short version, for those of you less familiar with Marvel's print-setup, is that in the various strands of comic continuity, all of their heroes and villains inhabit the same version of New York; Avengers, mutants, scientists and freelance photographers alike. They're constantly round each others houses borrowing sugar and the like. In the late 90s / early 00s, when the film rights were divided up between various studios, Fox got the X-Men and directly related characters as well as The Fantastic Four. Sony got everything that falls under the Spider-Man property, and Paramount ended up with most of everything else, enabling the Avengers timeline, which was then bought back by Marvel Studios after Iron Man 3. Generally speaking this hasn't caused too many problems (other than the fact that the Chitauri from Avengers Assemble should really have been The Skrulls, except those fall under the Fantastic Four property), and has only led to mild consternation from comic-fans that it feels like something's 'missing' from each set of movies. Marvel and Sony recently announced the merging of Spider-Man with the MCU though, which is great news (despite another apparent reboot for Spidey), but this business with Quicksilver is downright messy. The 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' should really be the leading-authority on Marvel's characters, yet it feels like they're somehow lying about two of their own...

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Avengers - Age of Ultron (Spoiler-free)

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (first-pass / SPOILER-FREE)
Cert: 12A / 141 mins / Dir. Joss Whedon / Trailer



And here we are at the dawn of a new era. The gang of Avengers we've come to know and love are still on the hunt for the Loki-pokey-stick, determined to prevent it from being used for nefarious ends by the remnants of Hydra. But when The Ultron Project, an A.I. designed to protect humankind, becomes self-aware and more than a little peeved at the world it discovers, it can only mean an extra item on the to-do list for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Eleven films into the saga, Marvel have decided that the cast list should be positively heaving, with faces old and new alike. Some characters enter the stage, some characters exit the stage, some get the character-development they've been crying out for, while others just pop in to say hello. With a couple of notable exceptions, Age of Ultron features a sizeable number of supporting players from earlier Marvel Cinematic Universe movies making appearances. In addition to this we're treated to several new characters from the Avengers pantheon. Fans of the comics or animated incarnations will recognise the names and faces, but may well raise an eyebrow at the backstories and origins which have been tweaked for the MCU. But this all makes sense within its own timeline, which is what we've come to expect.

It's all far too much to take in on the first viewing of course, but that's what'll make re-watching so rewarding. Even with so much going on, it's clear that Age of Ultron is a far more transitional movie than any which have come before it. Welcome to Phase Three…

The business-end:

• Is there a Wilhelm Scream?Yes.
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo?Yes.
• Is there a mid-credits scene?Yes.
• Is there a post-credits scene? Not in the UK-print. I only make the distinction because the US print of the first Avengers flick had the Shawarma scene which - as I was reminded this evening - doesn't feature in the UK cinema-version. If you're watching Age of Ultron in the UK, you can make your way out as soon as the names start scrolling up the screen.

It is.



Well, I'd say it's a buy-er, but if you're not interested in seeing it at the flicks, you're probably not interested at all are you?



For a couple of the characters, yes. For the rest, not quite.



More than.



Maybe just a bit.



There is.



The film stars Sam 'Windu' Jackson, AND Mr Andy Serkis, from off of The Force Awakens.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Captain America - The Winter Soldier (fourth-pass)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3D) (fourth-pass)
Cert: 12A / 136 mins / Dir. Dir. Joe Russo & Anthony Russo / Trailer


[ FTR, earlier reviews are here, here and here, with a Cap-related post here ]

Now, it's not that I didn't enjoy Captain America: The Winter Soldier in any way, but I certainly found it to be the least super-heroic of the MCU's super-hero timeline so far; more of an action movie which happens to have genetically modified super-soldiers in it.

Bearing that in mind, I'd initially questioned the wisdom of placing it in the centre of a triple-bill between two far more outlandish flicks, especially when Iron Man 3 carries on the sardonic vibe of Avengers Assemble, and Thor: The Dark World ramps up the fantastical in a way which Cap2 just can't.

But to give the film its due, The Winter Soldier deals far more with the inner-workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. than any other movie in the series to date, and as such is certainly more relevant to the larger narrative (the post-credits scene also leads into Age of Ultron more neatly).

The story's not exactly po-faced, but Captain Rogers' disillusionment with present-day politics lends the film a more sombre tone which doesn't always sit comfortably with an audience familiar with the facetiousness of Tony Stark. But more importantly, the film succeeds in moving on the overall story (the lack of which is a criticism fairly levelled at some of the MCU's other movies), and I'll take Toby Jones any way I can get him. Even if that is as an annoyingly convenient plot-device masquerading as a ZX Spectrum.

Not as much fun as Cap's first outing but with much more to say, The Winter Soldier seems to be Marvel trying to grow up, before (thankfully) thinking better of it with Guardians Of The Galaxy...

If you're an existing fan of the series, yes.



As if you need ask…



Not quite, sadly.



I think it does, yes.



Not as much as you'd expect.



There bloody well is, yes.



The film stars Sam 'Windu' Jackson.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.